Crabby Pantry Diaries, Week 12 May 18, 2011

So I was trying to think of why I’ve been so intolerably crabby in the last couple of weeks. I was sure the sickness — heading into week 2 of coughs and colds around here — was just a part of it. Although it definitely adds to my daily stress level, I knew there was something else going on.

I thought it might have something to do with my recent habit of visiting too many crafty websites. My cousin introduced me to a new social network called Pinterest. Instead of sharing personal information, you share your interests via photos of things you’ve created or want to try to create. You install the “Pin It” application to your bookmarks bar on your browser. Then, as you are surfing the web, and you see something you like, such as a recipe or a color scheme or a bookcase, you hit your Pin It button and it pins it to your Pinterest boards. This lets you refer back to it later, like a file of ideas you don’t want to forget. It also lets us crafty girls share ideas and get ideas. It’s non-linear, right-brained and wonderfully impersonal — refreshingly opposite of Facebook.

However, a major side effect of my new infatuation with Pinterest is I’ve been discovering WAY too many other mommy bloggers who craft. All of them wonderful, creative and original, and all of them have fancy, multi-layered websites that go beyond the wordpress template that I’m using here. I used to let Martha Stewart make me feel inadequate because I don’t shear my own sheep to make the yarn which with I knit. Today, I’m like, “Martha Who?” Seriously, there are so many amazing women out there who seem to be able to transform an entire living room just by angling a chair a certain way. You would think this would make me feel empowered. In the post-feminist, post-Martha environment, we are ALL Marthas. In my case, it only made me look around at my home and realize there are a million things I’d like to do but I haven’t done, and these women all have done.

So I decided to make a list of all the things around me that were bugging me — all things in need of organization and a little crafting up. It is a LONG list, people. And that list? Just made me feel much, much worse.

Just to make things better, I got on the scale this morning and I gained 2.5 pounds, since the last time I weighed in. That was um, maybe three weeks ago?

Anyway, so I’ve got some back-on-the-horse getting to do this week.

And, I’ve got some cute-ifying to do around here. Much like my Wednesday diet blog, I’m going to inspire myself to bring on the cute around here by adding a new regular feature to the blog. Check back Monday, May 23 for the first installment.

In the meantime, as I  burn some calories getting my head out of this crafty rut, hopefully this will result in less time to think about what to eat when I sick, stressed out and annoyed at my surroundings. Deep breath:

Best Day: Tuesday, May 17

(Prepared to be unimpressed)

Breakfast: one serving oatmeal, one serving half & half with coffee

Lunch: two servings salt & vinegar pop chips, two glasses orange juice.

Dinner: two servings Pho meatball noodle soup.

Worst Day: Friday, May 13

Breakfast: 2 eggs on toast, one serving string cheese, one Cadbury Creme Egg

Lunch: One cup tuna salad.

Snack: two rice cakes, one serving peanut butter

Dinner: three fish tacos, one pint of Blue Moon

Dessert: One Skinny Cow peppermint ice cream sandwich, two glasses red wine.

Crabby Pantry Diaries, Week 11: let me hear your potty talk May 11, 2011

hi there. i’m in lower case letters today because i’m feeling a bit puny. all of us here are recovering from yuck nose. little dude ended up with an ear infection.

I won’t insult you by pretending this week’s installment of the Crabby Pantry Diaries is about dieting in the smallest way, so let’s cut the crap and get right to it.

Best Day, Thursday, May 5:

Breakfast: One serving oatmeal with one half serving rice milk, one serving Cadbury Creme Egg (no, The Hubs hasn’t run out of them yet. He may secretly be a hoarder, we’re looking into it.)

Lunch: Egg sandwich with light string cheese on rice cakes.

Dinner: One serving Chicken Noodle Pho.

Worst Day: Friday, May 6

Breakfast: One serving cowboy mush (I think this is just cooked cornmeal that the Hubs’s grandma named “cowboy mush” to get kids to eat it.)

Snack: One Nutri-Grain Bar, one sweet & salty granola bar, one serving mixed nuts, zero calorie Vitamin Water. (Road food)

Lunch: (mom’s house) Two jalapeno wraps with chicken salad, one serving of abominable store-brand chips from Aldi, shaped and packaged to make you think it’s Sun Chips, but are actually fried and not baked (like the real Sun Chips), and which taste like Bugles. So, not bad for Bugles.

Dinner: Veggie burger and pretty decent french fries from the weirdest, stickiest restaurant in Chicago, Trader Todd’s. This was served alongside a special “cocktail” comprised of orange-flavored Monster energy drink with vodka. Or something.

Dessert: three bites of chocolate bread pudding that my friend ordered at Schuba’s Harmony Grill, followed by one large gin & tonic and one 16-oz. cup of cranberry vodka that had to be watered down because I totally forgot there was alcohol in it the second the straw was in my mouth, causing me to adios the entire shebang in about two minutes. Seriously, it tasted like $5 juice, and I was tired and dehydrated from spending the evening walking all over Lakeview, and from being intimidated by all the extremely attractive, young and stylish hipster ladies from the neighborhood, and from feeling guilty over leaving the Hubs home alone with a sick baby so I could go to Chicago to see Too Beautiful to Live.

Do not even ask me what I weigh this week.

May I ask, does an infant ever NOT get an ear infection when they’re fighting a cold virus? They can’t blow their noses, except by accident. Seems like an ear infection is inevitable. Which means a trip to the doctor for the common cold, and then a round of amoxicillin. Taking the meds isn’t so bad. Even squoojing out the mucus from the tiny angry nose isn’t so bad. Yes, that’s right, I said squoojing. You try it and then tell me what it sounds like. The worst part is the effect of the antibiotics on the diaper. That is to say, not only do we all have sloshy noses, sloshy heads, and sloshy tummies from drinking so many fluids, but Little Dude has got particularly slosh-a-riffic diapers because the meds give him the bubble guts. You may recall Little Dude’s previous struggles with this situation.

This particular bout of colds has been extra challenging. He’s much bigger now than he was last December. So, it turns out, the good old fashioned Pampers don’t hold much in when stuff wants to run South of the Border. The child has soiled two pairs of Daddy’s pants in two days, and he’s burned through all of his own pants in less than four days. That’s saying something. Once again, the universe is reminding me that switching to disposable diapers when you are stressed out does not serve you well. The universe summarily smited me on Monday morning.

Here’s how it went, and I’ll use present-tense just so you can share my existential panic: The Little Dude wakes me up, I put him in a disposable, plop him in the high chair and fix his breakfast. I first feed him his medicine with his formula, then his cereal. I clean him up, check his diaper and all is clear. So I set him down in his Elmo walker and turn on Super Why so I can have a few precious minutes of peace to make my breakfast and coffee. Everything is going smoothly, and I’m able to sit down, eat my oatmeal and drink my coffee all the way through without interruption. Then I smell it.

“Time to change that butt!” I pick him up out of the Elmo and realize something is wrong. I take a peak inside and the poo has tumbled down his leg and is precariously caught in the folds of his pants. So I carry him upside down to the changing table to keep the turdishness from spilling out. Here is where it gets really disgusting. I peel off his pants, so of course the poo goes all over both of his legs. I cannot manage to smile and sing to him while I’m unsticking this biohazard of a diaper off of him, so of course Little Dude starts to squirm and whine, which makes poo smear in other places. I pull off the diaper and now his shirt is a mess. He needs a bath, and now the changing table does, too. I clean him up superficially with baby wipes and set him on the floor, naked. What’s the point of putting a diaper on him when I’m just about to run a bath? I throw the diaper mess in the diaper bucket, then take his pants and shirt to the bathroom to spray them off in the toilet before dousing them with baking soda and filing them away in the soiled laundry bucket. I run the bath. I go back to his room and he’s sitting on the floor playing with his xylophone, looking very proud of the pee puddle in front of him. On the carpet.

These are the moments for which fainting couches were made. I just want to take to my bed and start over. But I don’t. I never do. There does not exist a brilliant enough Super Why episode to keep Little Dude distracted enough for me to call the kind of time out that I need right now. So I muddle through. I ask myself what my next three steps are. Bath, get dressed, clean up the pee. In moments like this, chanting my three next steps gets me through whatever moment I feel like I’m stuck in. I don’t know why it works, but it does. Maybe I’m slightly ADD. Like right now for instance: Stop blogging, rescue the baby from under the Ikea rocking chair, brush teeth.

I know most of you can sympathize. But some people take a dim view of my parenting strategies. Take this commenter, who I believe represents a firm best known for its attempts to sell me some embiggening products for male nether regions (misspellings and lack of apostrophes are the writer’s mistakes, not mine).

“I must say, as very much as I enjoyed reading what you had to say, I couldnt help but lose interest after a while. Its as if you had a fantastic grasp around the subject matter, but you forgot to include your readers. Perhaps you should think about this from much more than one angle. Or maybe you shouldnt generalise so a lot. Its better if you think about what others may have to say instead of just going for a gut reaction to the topic. Think about adjusting your personal believed process and giving others who may read this the benefit of the doubt.”

I’m always thrilled to get comments on my blog, even from people whose first language is not English. I have to give him or her credit for composing a vague enough comment that some people — but probably not the average smarty-pants blogger — would be duped into approving the comment and inadvertently including a link to the above-mentioned nethers-embiggening products.

Anyone else — aside from the penile enlargement community — think I don’t have a grasp around the subject matter? Do I really generalize so a lot? Maybe I should adjust my personal believed process and next week’s post will be better.

The Crabby Pantry Diaries, Week 10 May 4, 2011

Warning: do not embark on a date night without a plan. One of you will make the other partner feel like crap on a biscuit and then Mrs. Crap Biscuit will blow her diet for the next several days.

I fell so hard off the end of my little crabby red wagon this week. My Grandma’s 87th birthday meant I was visiting my parents for the weekend, which means I had no control over the amount of baked goods around me.

For reasons I can’t fathom, our arrival was greeted by a strawberry rhubarb pie and a plate full of homemade almond joy. That’s not true, I can fathom it. It is just the way it is. I avoided the pie, mostly out of protest. But somehow I found myself hitting those almond joys pretty hard, and I don’t even like coconut all that much.

Sunday was party day, and I went from coffee and cookies at my aunt’s house to the birthday lunch with seven different kinds of lasagna. In case you did not know it, I am not, in fact, a striped orange cat who hates Mondays. I am not helpless in the face of a good pasta dish. So why did I eat three pieces of it plus dessert?

It may have had something to do with the night before. Mom and dad offered to babysit. Offered is not the right word. I think the word I am searching for is demanded. They shoved me and the Hubs out the door and told us to have a fun date night, even though we had no plans and the Hubs was feeling crabby. I don’t really know why he was feeling crabby, as I can tell you that he is definitely not dieting.

Anyhoo. So the half-crabby couple heads to beautiful downtown Crown Point and arrives at a little Italian restaurant that came recommended at the last minute. I order a Bellini and eggplant parm. Like a good girl, I eat only half.

Then, like a person demonstrating the worst date behavior known to man, the Hubs gets the bill and has a silent freak out. Yes, that’s write, my love. I am writing about that. You knew I was a writer when you married me, so suck it up. He gets a look on his face that says, “I Can’t Believe She Made Me Eat Here” combined with “Maybe If I Vomit Right Here I Can Claim Food Poisoning and They’ll Waive My Half of the Bill.”

All conversation between us stops and I wish I was elsewhere other than in public with a dude acting like an angry cave troll. If it had been a first date, I would have been pissed off enough to end the date right there. But oh no, we’ve got those wedding band things on.

So, I try to make the best of it and suggest we walk around the square and take the long way back to the car. It’s a beautiful night and I’m going to have a good time. We walk to the corner and he wonders why I want to cross to the other side of the street, where the shops are, instead of crossing directly to the courthouse, where our car is parked. I tell him I thought we could take our time and just walk. I actually say out loud that I’m trying to salvage what’s left or our date. More or less, I get a “whatever” kind of shrug in response.

We complete our Death March to the car, and there on the asphalt on the passenger side is a broken beer bottle. It reminds me of the scene in Say Anything, when Lloyd Dobbler points out some broken glass on the ground, so Diane can step around it. I realize that this is not going to happen to me tonight because my Lloyd Dobbler is not going to see the broken glass on the ground because he is not here to open my door.

But he’s not Lloyd Dobbler and I’m not Diane. We’re an old married couple who just had a shit show of an evening and who will now not speak a civil word to each other the rest of the night.

As we’re stuck together for the weekend as visitors, we drive back early to my parents’ house and it is the worst. I spend the rest of my evening sulking behind my headphones, alternating between feeling like a jackass for picking an overpriced restaurant, and — more correctly — feeling indignant and angry that the Husband doesn’t even know he’s just sent me the message that not only am I not worth an unexpected $20 eggplant parm, but I’m so not worth it that he’s going to take it out on me by not trying to make me feel better even after I apologize for picking a dud restaurant.

And the point of all that, dear readers, is to give you some kind of accounting for why I haven’t kept my food journal up to date since last week Saturday, and to explain why I ate too much lasagna on Sunday and some weird homemade candy that I didn’t even like.

Honestly, I still have not quite recovered. I have yet to open my food calorie counter thingy, and you are grossly mistaken if you think I am going to weigh myself this week.

But I am going to start journaling again TODAY, because I feel a little bit better now that I have all that off my chest. Only a little. All I know is, my first Mother’s Day had better be nicer than that.

Crabby Pantry Diaries, Week 9: Scooter-riffic April 26, 2011

I am a woman, so let me just say right now that I am aware of how much I compare my physical appearance to that of others. This is what we do. It is the seed that roots into our brains and makes us size each other up. For example, when I first met my best friend in college, my first thought was, “She’s prettier than I am. She’s probably stuck up. Ergo, hate her.”

If that sounds harsh, well, at least I know we all do this.  Months after this best friend and I had gotten to know each other and were getting along swimmingly, another mutual friend admitted to having the exact same thought at the exact same moment that I was having it. This is hard wired into our DNA, people.

Same goes for people who are not in my social circle. I buy most of my groceries at Wal-Mart currently, because a) no farmers’ markets are currently open in the Midwest, b) it’s cheap and we’re forced to be thrifty, c) it’s literally a block from our home, and d) it gives me a bit of an ego boost to go there. Admit it. You know when you go to the WM, you silently judge people for what they’re carting around. And for what they are wearing. And for the length of the stringy mullet peaking out the back of their American flag baseball cap. Come on, there’s a reason for the existence of People of Wal-Mart.

So there I was, last Saturday. The Hubs and Little Dude and I were making a left hand turn from the produce section into the frozen food aisle. Not for the ice cream; I was trying to get at my ubiquitous Boca burgers. If you must know, I like sandwiches. No, I love sandwiches. But, deli meat every day for lunch makes me irritable. I do love the salty goodness, and I did eat a lot of it whilst preggo, against the advice of my doctor and God and the internet. But good luck getting me to eat anything non-processed while carrying Little Dude in my guts. Not my finest dining repertoire. Anyway, we were suddenly at the back of a traffic jam because there were not one but two people on those scooter-cart things, put-put-putting along, and making everyone wait for them to make the turn from the opposite direction.

Mind you, I’m not holding a grudge against the disabled. These people were not disabled. They did not look like they even needed scooter-carts. I say this only because there are so many people, it seems, who choose these carts these days, and are otherwise capable of walking. Who, in fact, would probably benefit more if they walked behind an actual grocery cart instead of scooting around. Not all of these people can have severe diabetes. Not all of them have an illness or injury or were born with a disability that requires the use of the scooters. I will likely get slammed for this, but there it is. I just don’t buy it. These people in particular, were, sadly, extremely obese.

My first thought, as always, was, “well, at least I’m not that fat.” Go ahead and write me hate mail, judge me, condemn me. But it’s the truth. And you all think the same thing. I shuffled along zombie-like behind the scooter people, waiting to get to my Bocas and getting annoyed, and wishing that Jillian Michaels were there at that moment to yell at a few people to get up and get moving. Just then, an elderly man, who looked like he’d just walked out of the Crankshaft comic, saw the look of impatience on my face. He walked by me and muttered, “If they weren’t so fat they wouldn’t need those damn things.”

I was gobsmacked. Speechless. Bewildered. Dumbfounded and flummoxed. Even after I realized he was just saying out loud what we were all thinking, I was utterly agog and aghast. I wanted to judge him, but I didn’t. He looked to be about the age of someone who served in Korea, and far be it from me to pass judgment on a serviceman. I usually give people of that age a pass.

I waited until we got to the next aisle over, and I whispered to Hubs what I’d just heard. I had to say it to somebody. Two aisle further, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted from the pasta section. Hubs asked me, “Did that make you forget your whole grocery list?” Yes, it did.

I wonder what kind of a world we are living in that I am more taken aback by someone speaking their mind, however rudely, than I am by seeing so many people eating themselves into an early grave. I don’t mean to be smug or judgmental due to the fact I’m actually doing something about my weight. I feel for those people. I really do. As much as I compare myself and thank God I’m not that bad off, I realize I could just as easily end up like that if I’m not careful.

Woof! End of sermon! Here goes the yucky parts:

Worst day: Friday, April 22

Breakfast: one serving oatmeal, half serving maple syrup, 1/4 cup applesauce, half serving rice milk, half serving Cadbury mini creme eggs.

Lunch: Two eggs, one serving whole wheat deli flat sandwich bread, one Boca chicken patty.

Dinner: One sausage calzone from B. Antonio’s, cannoli for dessert. YES. I ATE A FREAKIN’ CANNOLI. No, I’m not the jerky little son of Cake Boss, why do you ask?

Best Day: Tuesday, April 26

Breakfast: One serving oatmeal, one serving rice milk, half serving Cadbury mini creme eggs.

Lunch: Boca sandwich.

Snack: One banana, two rice cakes, one serving peanut butter. I like pb & bananas ALMOST as much as I like pb & chocolate. No, I’m not Elvis, but I think we have a cosmic connection when it comes to food addictions.

Dinner: Mixed green salad with carrots, one T olive oil, 1/4 c. walnuts, one serving artichoke hearts, one serving light string cheese.

Snack: One mini bag of kettle corn flavored popcorn — which I just found out is not the 100- calorie kind. The Hubs bought the super buttery kind, and it’s 200 calories. But I don’t care. There is one bag left and I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

The Crabby Pantry Diaries: Week 8 April 20, 2011

OMGosh you guys. I finally put a sweet burn on that insipid little twerp.

You know the one. See if you can guess:

“Hello! You’re ready to go, aren’t you?”

“Hello there, Jenn! Long time no see!”

“Well, if it isn’t Jenn!”

“Do you know it’s been 147 days since your last workout?”

The little rectangular menace of my nightscape. The animated virtual personal trainer without a face. The Great White Taunter of The Fatties, at whom I cry, “Zip it! You’ve never been tempted by a jelly doughnut because you do not have a face! And how are you talking anyway?”

All of you with a dust-gathering Wii Fit bundle under your sofa know exactly who I’m speaking about right now. You also are familiar with the truly dark side of this purportedly friendly little cartoon balance board. It wants us to rat each other out and be it’s ratty little messenger. You know how it goes, “So, Jenn, I haven’t seen What’shisnose in a while. Is he coming back anytime soon for more verbal beat-downs? Have you seen him? Well, if you do, could you tell him I’ll be waiting behind the gym after school?” Don’t do it, people! Whatever you do, don’t let that smarmy thing charm you with its hollow promises of “fitness tips,” or allowing you to (gasp!) change the color and stamps on your fitness calendar.

Today, I am proud to announce, I gave that creepy CGI Spongebob-wannabe what for. Totally by accident, I fried his virtual circuits.

As you know, I’ve been involved in a “stress-reducing” competition through my health insurance company. I bank a million virtual dollars and I get entered to win an iPad. How a competition can reduce stress is a mystery — but I’m less concerned about that than I am with winning. Anyway, to earn my maximum Schrute bucks every day, I have to eat a crate full of vegetables every day and drink an entire water tower, and then exercise continuously for 30 minutes. I’ve added  a Wii workout during the baby’s naptime, as our daily walks currently have no effect on my waistline. As it turns out, doing all these things makes you lose weight, FAST.

I weighed myself on Monday, and I’d lost 1.5 pounds since last week. I weighed myself again this morning for kicks and giggles, at the same hour of the day, and I’m down another 2.5 pounds. I exceeded my Wii Fit goal of losing two pounds by next week Tuesday. But instead of giving me a patronizing digital pat on the head, the little Wii dude went off the rails. He actually said, “You need to GAIN four pounds to meet your goal next week.”

I can’t wait to come back next week, another two pounds lighter, and see what the bouncing rectangle has to say for itself. I’m hoping once I lose an entire 20 pounds, I get something besides a new stamp for my calendar. But I’m not holding out hope that the animators will have seen fit to make the twerp transform  into George Clooney, personal trainer. A girl can dream, though.

Anyhoodle, on to the embarrassing bits.

Best Day, Tuesday, April 19:

Breakfast: Oatmeal, banana, half serving Cadbury mini creme eggs.

Snack: One whole grapefruit.

Lunch: Mixed green salad with carrots, one Boca chicken sandwich

Snack: one package edamame with sea salt.

Dinner: two cups steamed vegetables and 1.5 servings brown rice, with olive oil, one cup blueberries.

Snack: One mini bag of kettle flavored popcorn.

Worst Day:

Wednesday, April 13 (Otherwise known as Don’t Forget the Carbs Day)

Breakfast: Oatmeal, half serving rice milk, half serving Cadbury mini creme eggs, one serving Scooby Doo fruit snacks.

Lunch: One Boca chicken sandwich, two servings sourdough pretzel nuggets, one serving pita chips.

Dinner: 1.5 servings marinated bean salad, two servings pretzel nuggets.

Snack: Uncle John’s homemade peach flavored ice wine. More or less eight ounces. Not quite sure, I wasn’t counting by the second glass.

Crabby Pantry Diaries: Week 7 April 13, 2011

This might be a short one, people. It’s been one of those mornings. In fact I may be typing the next sentence while holding a screaming kid. I still haven’t showered, I’m not wearing my glasses, I’m dehydrated, the temperature reading for the outdoors was way off this morning so I walked the dog and the baby while wearing a jacket and scarf and now I’m all sweaty, plus I’m feeling ill and I have a million things to do, including seven things I don’t know HOW to do, so let’s cut the chit chat. Enough RPPs.*

I will let you in on this one thing — I did not weigh myself yesterday. I wanted to save my self-esteem. You may recall last week I was a indulgent with the birthday partying. For some reason, my body waits a week to show me exactly how indulgent I was. I’ve just decided to shield myself from that this week. I’ve gotten back on track and hopefully next week I’ll be back on the losing train, and it will be like my birthday never happened. That is how my brain works and it hasn’t failed me so far.

So let’s get to it.

Best day: Monday, April 11

Breakfast: oatmeal, 1/4 c. rice milk in coffee, one-half serving Cadbury mini creme eggs. (Thank you, calendar, for making things seem like we are having a really long Easter season.)

Snack: One grapefruit

Lunch: 2 cups mixed greens with 1 cup carrots, one Boca sandwich

Snack: Two servings raisins

Dinner: Three servings brussels sprouts, with 1/2 T butter and 1/2 T olive oil, 1 1/2 c. quinoa.

Snack: One orange

 

Worst Day: Friday, April 8 (Otherwise known as Peanut Butter Day)

Breakfast: PB & J on toast, half serving rice milk in coffee, half serving Candbury mini creme eggs.

Snack: One orange

Lunch: One Boca sandwich, two rice cakes with 1 1/2 servings peanut butter, 8 oz. pomegranate juice. (Juice = empty calories!)

Snack: One 100-calorie popcorn snack

Dinner: Tuna vegetable salad (1 1/2 cups whole wheat pasta, two servings tuna, 1 1/2 servings greek yogurt and two cups vegetables.)

That doesn’t look too bad, but if I had avoided the juice and had water instead, and stuck to the oatmeal for breakfast, and had fruit with my lunch instead of rice cakes with peanut butter, I would have saved a couple hundred calories, easy peasy.

A lot of things are easy peasy on paper. Dieting while crabby and coming off a birthday cake shame spiral, not so easy. Much easier to open a jar of peanut butter and have some juice. I’m extra crabby today with my RPPs, so let’s just see how I do with all these bags of pretzels that have suddenly appeared at our house. Have a great week!

*Rich People Problems

Crabby Pantry Diaries, Week 6: The 40-day Hump April 6, 2011

If you found this page by searching for the word, “Hump,” then buckle up. Things are about to get disgusting.

The bad news first. I gained 1.1 pounds this week. Could have something to do with my eating behavior around my parents, who came to see me on Saturday to celebrate my birthday.

I’m just going to blow on by that without too much pomp and circumstance. I have taken on Patton Oswalt’s philosophy of birthdays, which lies about 10 clicks below My Super Sweet Sixteen on the Celebration Spectrum, and just two clicks above Jehovah’s Witnesses. You can go look for that video if you want, but I don’t feel right about sharing it here in my little corner. It is very funny, but it contains salty language, as does 97 percent of the Internet, and I try to keep this space somewhat “kid safe.” OK, maybe just safe enough for junior high kids. Or at least as safe as a relatively well managed Presbyterian youth center.* Suffice it to say Patton Oswalt believes we are all allowed to celebrate about 20 birthdays, about half of them while we’re kids. Also, Al Gore wants us to save cake and paper.

Anyways, whether or not my parents are still having an effect on my emotional eating is not their fault. My mom was extremely conservative last weekend, and brought the World’s Smallest and Most Delicious Birthday Banana Cake from Costco, and a small loaf of Dutch rye bread. She’s learning! Still didn’t stop me from having this kind of day:

Saturday, April 2:

Breakfast: Three servings breakfast turkey links, one serving grits, one egg.

Lunch: Two-thirds serving of Pho Chicken Noodle Soup.

Snack: Two pieces of birthday cake.

Dinner: Ten pieces of Costco sushi. I KNOW, I know. It’s not real sushi if it doesn’t contain actual sashimi, but would you eat raw tuna out of the cooler at Costco? I didn’t think so. Now shut up, food snobs.

On the other hand, I made it over the 40 day hump. What is this? Somebody somewhere told me that it takes 40 days to make something a habit. Friday, April 1, was my 40th day of counting calories. And you know what? It totally works! I found that if I go half a day without counting, I get confused and I feel out of control. So even though I had a REALLY bad day this week, I’m happy to say I also had one of these:

Sunday, April 3:

Breakfast: Two servings brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts. Did you know the box says one serving is one tart? How irresponsible is this packaging? Enough to make you write a strongly worded letter to the Pop Tart people? Please copy me if you do. I WOULD LOVE IT.

Snack: One small chocolate chip cookie, one-half Pepperidge Farm vanilla Pirouette. (Somebody serving the church snacks cut all the pirouettes in half.)

Lunch: Leftover Pho, about half a serving, one nectarine.

Snack: Two pieces Dutch rye bread, one serving peanut butter.

Dinner: One cup black beans, two servings parmesan cheese.

Snack: One 100-calorie kettle-flavored popcorn.

Somehow I landed about 100 calories under my budget that day. Although to be honest, I can see that the birthday cake was not my only problem this week. Clearly I’m eating too many carbs and not enough vegetables and fruit every day. Maybe now that all this birthday nonsense is out of the way, I’ll get back to working on some real reasons to celebrate.

Have a great week!

 

* If you got that joke, I am begging you to start an Emo Phillips riff in the comments.

Crabby Pantry Diaries, Week 5: PB & C March 29, 2011

During Lent, I’m often given to spiritual pondering. This year is no exception. Specifically, I find myself wondering when they are going to go ahead and canonize Harry Burnett Reese, the guy who invented the chocolate and peanut butter combo. If you think I’m being sacreligious, then you’re just not a person who enjoys PB & C. In which case, something very wrong happened to you as a child. I suggest therapy.

The rest of you well-adjusted readers know what I mean. You remember the first time you ate chocolate and peanut butter together. It was Halloween. You were sorting through your haul of goodies that you’d just dumped out of your janky homemade cloth pumpkin sack onto your frilly kitten bedspread. You see the mini Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and you remembered the commercial you’d seen recently: Ralph Malph is walking down the street, munching a chocolate bar. From the other direction comes Robby Benson, eating from a jar of peanut butter. Why he’s eating out of a jar in public like it’s nothing, we may never know. When I eat it straight from the jar, I do it alone. In my kitchen. With the lights off. And then I cry. Because I like my peanut butter extra salty.

Here is the shameless wonder himself:

You may ask yourself: Why is Robby Benson costumed in nerd glasses and talking with a not-so believable Brooklyn accent? Why is the peanut-butter eater characterized as a nerdy intellectual? Where is he going, and what is he going to do with a jar of peanut butter when he gets there? What is a “Paper Back Bookstore”?

My younger readers may better remember this other Reese’s commercial from the 80s. This time the peanut butter jar freak is a woman, in a movie theater. At least it’s in the dark. I can think of worse things she could be doing in the theater. Get out of my head, Alanis!

Now, you may ask yourself: Is that a man or a woman sitting next to her, and why does she/he not even care that there is a potential psychopath sitting right there, eating out of a peanut butter jar she has sneaked into the theater via a giant purse? Why does the woman look so pleased to suddenly see a random object fall into her peanut butter? Why is there a fog machine in the lobby? Why is the snack vendor doing an impression of Igor? Are we watching a scary movie or are we IN a scary movie? Why would any woman fall for such a twitchy little twerp as he who tosses his chocolate bar over the balcony railing at the first sign of trouble in a presumably scary movie? Is she attracted to the high school jacket denoting he has lettered in something? Do they give out letters for peeing your pants? And, after she evidently just scarfed down the twitchy twerp’s chocolate bar after it fell into her peanut butter (Oh yeah, I am getting the metaphor LOUD and CLEAR, you dirty, dirty Reese’s commercial writers), why does she then get her Miss Piggy on, and hoof it to the lobby to get MORE chocolate and peanut butter in the form of the aforementioned Reese’s? I’ll tell you why. Because she is pregnant. And it is the best thing ever.

Anyway, so back to Halloween. You tried the cup. You loved the cup. You wanted to melt a big vat of cups and take a bath in the ensuing goo. You wondered why your mother never put cups in a blender and added the mixture to your baby bottle. You wondered why nobody had invented Reese’s cereal. Oh, just you wait.

Sigh. I miss the ’70s and ’80s. Those were the days when cereal manufacturers could get away with saying things like “Now part of this complete breakfast” and our moms, either addle-pated by all the drugs they did in the ’60s or too busy to care what we shoved down our gullets as long as we got to the school bus on time or both, bought it. “Part of this complete breakfast,” means nothing. Neither does saying, “Hey, we’re a legitimate breakfast cereal because you can eat it WITH A SPOON.” Moms today are just too amped up about being lied to by food makers. Thank you, “Food, Inc.” You ruined awesome cereal for college students everywhere.

My point is this: I lost another 2.4 pounds this week. I somehow did this AFTER indulging in some serious PB & C on Saturday night. The deceased inventor of PB & C was smiling down on me as I roamed through Target with Little Dude’s boxes of baby cereal (sans Reese’s, thank you very much — he’s 9 months old), making a pit stop in the chocolate aisle for a 400 calorie fix of the best thing ever. It was totally worth it, and totally a miracle. And that’s why he has earned sainthood.

Worst Day: Saturday, March 26

Breakfast: Two eggs, two servings light string cheese, one T ketchup, two mini Cadbury Creme eggs.

Snack: One 100 calorie popcorn snack.

Lunch: Two servings potato soup, made with Greek yogurt and fiesta blend cheese.

Snack: 1 cup baby carrots, one plum

Dinner: Same as lunch. That’s good soup. Plus 4 oz. of leftover turkey from Crock Pot Friday.

Snack: One Choxie milk chocolate and peanut butter bar (2 servings per bar.) No, not Reese’s. Just wanted to throw you a curve ball.

Best Day: Monday, March 28

Breakfast: One serving oatmeal, one-half serving rice milk in coffee, half serving cadbury mini creme eggs.

Lunch: Boca sandwich with light string cheese, 1 plain Greek yogurt with one serving pineapples.

Dinner: Three cups field greens salad (yes, it was the biggest bowl known to man, what of it?), one T olive oil, 1.5 c brown rice.

Snack: Homemade trail mix: one 100-calorie popcorn snack with 1/4 c. walnuts and 1/4 cup raisins.

Crabby Pantry Diaries, Week 4 March 23, 2011

I feel like writing loud today because I LOST THREE POUNDS AND SOME CHANGE, PEOPLE!

That about takes care of my all caps and exclamation mark quota for the day. In case you’re counting, that’s ten, plus the extra ounces I was kvetching about last week. I’m over my dessert rage and on to more positive minutae. I’ve even started writing myself notes on my Dunder-Mifflin dry-erase board on the refrigerator, like a true cornball self-improver. At first it started out sarcastic: “I love going to bed hungry, it makes me happy.” Then it tumbled into nebulous sincerity: “Go to bed hungry, you feel better about yourself in the morning!” This week’s note is not so much nebulous as it is pragmatic: “If you want a snack in the evening, brush your teeth and go to bed early.”

I know what’s happening. I’ve lost my first ten pounds, and I’m still prancing through that honeymoon phase of dieting. That’s the kind of honeymoon where, instead of rolling in the hay and occasionally going outside to look at a palm tree, you spend every waking moment thinking about food, writing down your food, wondering if you remembered to write down all of your food, wondering how much vegetables you will have to eat with dinner because you’ve run out of calories too early in the day, cursing your genes and your thyroid and your slow metabolism, and yelling at your spouse who is never hungry at the same time you are. And the diet honeymoon doesn’t even come with palm trees outside. Look out the window? See? Wet cement and blank, dormant trees. That’s March for you.

The upside is this honeymoon, as you compulsive dieters know, is also the phase where the pounds fall off like crazy. Your body has been re-booted. I know that this phase is not going to last; I’m going to plummet for awhile and then land on the plateau. That would be the same plateau after about a 20-pound loss that prompted me to drop out of Weight Watchers three times. Yep. Three. But that’s probably not going to happen for another month or so. Until then, I’ll allow myself to be slightly less crabby.

Worst Day: Friday, March 18

Breakfast: 1 serving oatmeal, 1 service rice milk in coffee, 1/2 serving Cadbury mini Creme Eggs.

Lunch: Boca sandwich with light string cheese, greek yogurt

Snack: 2 servings rice cakes with one serving peanut butter and one serving jam

Dinner: Two and one-half large pieces of crock pot lasagna with ground turkey, 8 oz. red wine. Not great, but only went over my calories about a couple hundred.  Also used whole wheat pasta and lower-fat mozzarella.

Best Day: Thursday, March 17

Exactly the same breakfast and lunch as Friday.

Afternoon snack: 1 apple, one serving peanut butter.

Dinner: Two cups mixed vegetables, homemade trail mix (100-calorie popcorn snack, with one serving raisins and one serving walnuts.)

After dinner snack (not a normal thing but I was way under my calories): 1 cup Cheerios, 1 serving rice milk. Still over 160 calories under budget.

That’s about it. I’m actually in a good mood. I truly can’t think of anything to complain about today. Must have something to do with wearing a tie-dye shirt. I just can’t be crabby today, so I won’t bore you with my positivity.

Crabby Pantry Diaries, Week 3: My Mother, My Prison March 16, 2011

If she were a tiny action figure, she would come with a teeny bag of homemade cookies, a Barbie-sized pie plate of leftover pie from church, an itty-bitty tin of blueberry muffins and a pull string that would make her say the following, “What do you want me to bring?” “Ok, I’ll just bring something small.” “It’s OK, you can have one cookie.” “Well, maybe you’re husband would like some treats, did you think of that?” “Fine, I’ll just make cookies for him from now on.” “Grandma’s sweetheart would like some cookies.”

All of these features make up the DNA for a perfect grandmother. But not a mother to a serious dieter. Less than perfect. Less perfect and more … disastrous saboteur of self-esteem and empowered calorie-counting.

I can’t blame my mother for my issues with weight or with food. Obviously, nobody held a gun to my head and forced me to eat cookies after school every day or dessert after dinner. Nobody forced me to continue that practice when I became an adult. And I can’t blame it entirely on genetics. Although genetically speaking, even the thinnest, tallest, blondest, bluest-eyed women to whom I am related still complain about DBD. Dutch Butt Disease.

But my mother should know better. You may recall the fact that this is the person who lost and is still losing weight after bariatric surgery. What I’m learning is, elective medical procedures do not fix food addiction. She specifically asked what she could bring when she and dad visited last weekend. I specifically said, “Nothing. No sweets. PLEASE.” She showed up with a bag of cookies and a pie. Homemade sweets are my kryptonite. I had such a great week, after going to two different restaurants, ordering pancakes and taking half of them home each time in a carry out box. Then my mother shows up with pie. This makes me crabby, but I’m not able to express my disappointment to her because I’m polite to my houseguests. This makes me frustrated, crabby, and now hungry and wanting to eat sweets.

I waited to express my displeasure until after she left. I tweeted. Tweeting: a passive aggressive girl’s best friend. Blogging: a passive aggressive girl’s longer best friend. My first order of business was to send that pie off to my husband’s office on Monday morning. Come on, people. A Key Lime pie with cream cheese and lime green Jell-O? If there’s one thing being a crabby dieter has made me into, it’s a food snob. If I’m going to nuke all my calories on dessert, it better be real Key Lime. That’s sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks, and actual Key lime juice. But then Husband forgot the pie. So into the trash it went. I know. It’s crazy wasteful. But I did it and it felt good. If I hadn’t, that thing would have been sitting on my counter calling my name in the language that only cream cheese knows, even packaged inside an imposter pie. Then, I piled an empty baby cereal box on top of it, and threw in some old, wet tea bags. No way to Costanza that pie out of the trash.

Pie victory aside, My mother’s cookies did not escape my cookie-hole. Neither did the lard in the refried beans at the Mexican restaurant on Saturday night. And so, I ended up gaining half a pound this week. I’m not too upset, I guess. It’s not that much of a setback, and aside from that I gained a bit of courage in the face of empty calories. And possibly, some courage in the face of Little Dude’s grandma, to whom I will say next time, “Bring the cookies and pie home with you, or else it’s going in the garbage.” I’ll let you know how that goes.

So here was my worst day. Saturday, March 12:

Breakfast: One-half serving triple berry pancakes at Spyro’s. (Only the best breakfast in town)

Lunch: Boca chicken patty, light string cheese, 100-calorie deli flat bread, greek yogurt. Um, followed by three oatmeal raisin, cranberry, white chocolate cookies. Yes, THOSE cookies.

Snack: couple handfuls honey mustard pretzel pieces.

Dinner: Steak tacos and a 27-ounce margarita at Cebolla’s. And no, I did not take half of it home. I did only eat half of the refried beans, but half a pound of lard and cheese is still half a pound of lard and cheese.

Best day, Thursday, March 10:

Breakfast: One serving oatmeal, half serving rice milk, coffee.

Snack: 1 medium ruby red grapefruit.

Lunch: Boca sandwich (I think you get the picture), greek yogurt, one serving Snapea Crisps.

Snack: Homemade trail mix: one serving each of raisins, walnuts, and popcorn.

Dinner: 1.5 servings couscous, 1/3 can tuna, 1 cup peas.

Snack: 1 serving popcorn with kettle corn seasoning, 2 servings wine.

See what I did there? Well, no you can’t see precisely. But looking at my food log, my wine intake seems to increase heading into the weekend, peaks on Saturday with the arrival of my parents (see 27-ounce margarita above) and slowly tapers off again after Sunday.

There’s probably not a correlation there.